College basketball rankings: Michigan State moves into top 10, Baylor is unanimous No. 1 in new Coaches Poll

The Spartans began the year unranked in the poll and have steadily risen in recent weeks

By Kyle Boone

Dec 20, 2021 at 1:01 pm ET • 1 min read

Michigan State opened the 2021-22 season unranked in the Coaches Poll, but its strong start to the season and a recent surge has the Spartans as one of two programs crashing the top 10 of Monday's updated rankings.

On the heels of a four-game winning streak that included a 2-0 start to league play with wins over Minnesota and Penn State, Sparty jumped two spots to No. 10, their highest ranking in the poll all season and the second-highest ranking among all Big Ten teams behind only Purdue. Iowa State joined Michigan State in a jump to the top 10, leaping from No. 11 last week to No. 8 this week.

At the top, Baylor strengthened its hold on the No. 1 ranking by earning all 32 first-place votes as the top team in the sport -- the first team to achieve that honor in the Coaches Poll this season. Duke held serve at No. 2. Purdue moved up one spot to No. 3. Gonzaga and Arizona both earned 673 votes to tie for the No. 4 spot.

Coaches Poll

The top 25 teams in the USA Today college basketball Coaches Poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Sunday, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote and last week's ranking:

Rank	Team	Record	Points	Prev.
1	Baylor (32)	10-0	800	1
2	Duke	10-1	754	2
3	Purdue	10-1	689	4
4	Gonzaga	9-2	673	4
4	Arizona	11-0	673	6
6	UCLA	9-1	670	3
7	Kansas	9-1	639	7
8	Iowa State	11-0	501	11
9	USC	12-0	480	9
10	Michigan State	9-2	446	12
11	Alabama	9-2	422	8
12	Auburn	10-1	412	14
13	Ohio State	8-2	400	15
14	Houston	10-2	398	13
15	Seton Hall	9-1	383	16
16	LSU	11-0	254	20
17	Texas	8-2	243	17
18	Kentucky	8-2	217	21
19	Tennessee	8-2	215	18
20	Xavier	11-1	204	25
21	Colorado State	10-0	203	23
22	Villanova	7-4	158	10
23	Providence	11-1	149	NR
24	Wisconsin	9-2	129	NR
25	Texas Tech	8-2	89	24